Posted on 02/19/2009 6:11:41 PM PST by llevrok
Millions of wild pigs weighing up to 300 pounds have been tearing up crops, trampling fences and eating just about anything in their path in Texas. But now they had better watch their hairy backs.
A state lawmaker is proposing to allow ordinary Texans with rifles and shotguns to shoot the voracious, tusked animals from helicopters.
For years, ranchers in the Lone Star State have hired professional hunters in choppers to thin the hogs' fast-multiplying ranks. Now state Rep. Sid Miller of the Fort Worth area wants to bring more firepower to the task by issuing permits to sportsmen.
"I've had numerous calls and complaints that someone needs to do something," Miller said. "We're losing ground on this problem."
If approved, it could be the first program of its kind in the nation. Some other states, like Gov. Sarah Palin's Alaska, allow aerial hunting, but only to control predators, such as bears and wolves.
Some Texans worry about collateral damage.
"If they're going to open up to where you can do this and anybody who's got a helicopter can go off to an old boy's place and hunt, that's going to be bad," said Jay Smith, owner of Smith Helicopters in Cotulla. Some people "may get confused and shoot the rancher's dog or a calf."
Miller gave assurances the hunting would be closely regulated, though details on such things as how many hunters would be allowed to take part, and how many hogs they would be permitted to kill, have yet to be worked out.
"You're not going to have some bubba up there going, `Pass me a beer and ammo' and hunting some hogs," the legislator said. "We certainly want to do it right."
Many hunters and landowners will probably leave the carcasses in the field, just as they do now. Wild hogs that are gunned down cannot be sold for meat under U.S. agriculture regulations. (Moreover, wild boar is said by some to be tough and gamey.)
An estimated 2 million wild hogs are causing $52 million a year in crop damage in Texas, according to agricultural experts. Pigs that they are, they eat just about anything, including the carcasses of their own brethren. They trample crops, dig up plants with their snouts and steal animal feed. Entire peanut farms have been stripped.
And the pasture-wrecking porkers are causing trouble well beyond farms. Authorities in Texas are reporting an increase in collisions between hogs and cars, while golf courses and suburbs are increasingly finding turf uprooted by hogs.
The animals are descended from hogs introduced into Texas by Spanish explorers more than 300 years ago. But their numbers began booming in the 1980s.
The big ones have no natural predators. Not even a coyote will tangle with a pig bigger than 20 pounds.
During a recent pass in his helicopter over Mertzon in West Texas, Kyle Lange, a professional hunter who is paid to pick off wild hogs from the air in what some are calling a "pork chopper," offered a glimpse of the magnitude of the problem.
As his helicopter flew over, several packs of hogs that had been rooting around in the brush or napping in the sun suddenly scattered in all directions, with piglets scampering to keep close to their mothers, the little hairs on their backs blown back by the breeze from the chopper.
"You can kill 300 in a day from up here in the Panhandle and you've just slowed them down is all," Lange said over the whump-whump of his two-seat chopper.
Wildlife experts have tried less brutal methods to control their numbers. But the hogs are smart and have learned to avoid traps, and a birth control pill for female hogs is still in development. Many experts agree aerial hunting works.
Nearly 1,100 permits to kill hogs from the air were issued in Texas last year, up from 201 in 2000. Under Miller's bill, weekend hunters would be able to get permits too, though they would also have to pay landowners for the right to hunt on their property.
“Aerial Wild Pig Hunting”
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When Pigs Fly!
I remember my rancher uncle in Jim Hogg County (deep south TX - 80 west of Corpus Christi) hitting a javelina with his jeep and just threw it in the back cause the ranch hands would turn it into bacon...Scary riding in the jeep - praying the darn thing WAS dead. My cousin had to whack one twice when he did the same thing - to make SURE it was dead. Shoot the darn things!
Has Ashley Judd signed off on this procedure?
Don’t you just love it when Hollywood Idiots tell us what to do, esp. when these idiots know nothing about wildlife managmement?
Ashley Judd jumped all over Sarah Palin about Alaska’s procedures to control predatory animals.
Ashley may jump over Gov. Rick Perry of Texas because he’s Republican. I wonder if Ashley would say anything if they do this in a blue state with a good Democrat governor???????
mmmmMMMM! Texas BBQ!
Pull!
Durn! Missed him! And he looks angry too. I hope he don't turn and come back and poop on us!
I know the dumbass left is going to see some sort of racist symbolism in this. Wild pigs. Bari’s Porkulus Maximus. This isn’t a coincidence. Rev. Al is going to need a couple cases of “C” batteries for his bullhorn for this one.
The young hogs are tasty and make very fine sausage. These are feral hogs, domesticated hogs that have fled captivity and have reverted to the wild state.
They are a huge nuisance and do considerable damage to pastures and yards as they travel in herds of up to 300 and dig trenches everywhere.
I’ll volunteer for some!!!
Sounds like a great “here, hold muh beer” day out.
Will they remember to take 'em all? Maybe they need to watch a couple of the birth control commercials that litter the TV to get persuaded.
Ping.
Not the wild ones, though. I read somewhere else that it's impossible to get the gamey taste out of the wild pig meat.
“Shooting Aerial Wild Pigs has got to be
like shooting really big, slow-moving skeet.”
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You gotta lead ‘em just right.
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Its hard to get feral hogs when they are in a thicket.
Bullets deflect. Ariel allows a shot.
Feral hogs are a MAJOR nuisance, and quite dangerous
BS, people to sorry to hunt should stay home, and not be allowed to own firearms, but then the mentally incompetent already are listed.
Only the males!!!
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